Sac Bee: Fifty Men Commit Most Gun Crimes in Sacramento. Could Money, Mentoring Get Them to Stop?

The truth about gun crimes, said Boggan, is that a small number of known shooters cause an outsize amount of trauma. They can be hard to catch, he said, and few have tried to reach them with anything but enforcement.

Boggan has taken a different approach. His Advance Peace initiative, backed by philanthropic and government funding, identified Richmond’s most active firearm-wielding criminals and tried to get them to change their ways through intensive one-on-one intervention, including therapy, mentoring and offering to pay them when they reached agreed-upon goals.

Boggan, supported by Sacramento City Councilman Rick Jennings, is proposing to bring Advance Peace to Sacramento.

In September, the Sacramento City Council will vote on whether to try Boggan’s program to reduce gun violence and gun-related homicides. The city is being asked to commit $1 million over four years in an attempt to target “the most lethal young men walking the streets,” Boggan said.

Reformed felons would serve as mentors. Participants, called “fellows,” would receive around-the-clock support along with cash stipends paid in increments for reaching milestones such as beating substance abuse, getting a high school diploma or improving parenting skills.

A month before the City Council vote, resistance to the idea of Advance Peace is simmering in Sacramento’s law enforcement community and among some on the City Council. District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert said she has “many concerns” and that Sacramento already has community organizations that “provide excellent youth mentoring and intervention programs.”

Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones, in an email interview, said he has “fundamental objections” to the program and to the idea of paying “people just to (not) commit crimes or shoot people.”